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"Empty Places", when Xander, Willow, Giles, and Dawn decide to say "Fuck it, who cares if she's been our friend and leader for seven years, and saved the world countless times -- this seems like a good night to kick her out of her own house, in the middle of an apocalypse, and replace her with a serial murderer."

My working theory is that the First put crazy pills in the water supply (but forgot to spike Buffy's Tab).

i think the hardest part was seeing willow agree to kick her out. xander has a history of sometimes being unsupportive, and he just lost an eye, so it wasn't totally expected; but i can't think of another time when willow didn't support buffy 100%.

I think if they had done it sooner, maybe when they haven't been to the end of the world and back 6 times I could've believed it. But it was way to fucking late in the season..do they really expect us to think her family would throw her out that quickly!?

Sorry Buffy writers, you fucked up on that one and you aren't fooling this girl.

I watched Buffy years after it first aired, so I was already at least peripherally aware of all the major spoilers (deaths, new characters appearing, betrayals), but there were still some minor ones that caught me by surprise. The first "what the hell?" moment for me was when the first principal spoiler. It was the first real indication that this was not your typical, formulaic, "return to the status quo by the end of the episode" show.

I also liked Normal Again; Buffy was struggling with some deep turmoil in this one. They didn't make it a flippant "it was all a dream!" episode, in my opinion. Also, this episode was a lot like the Star Trek TNG episode "Frame of Mind" (also in season 6, coincidentally) in which Ryker is in a play written by Dr. Crusher about a patient in a mental asylum. He gets stuck in the reality of the play, in which he is in an asylum, and the Enterprise and its crew are figments of his imagination that he must reject in order to "get better". I'm not sure whether this was supposed to be a TNG reference, but there are enough other TNG references in the series that it wouldn't surprise me.

I somehow skipped that episode (normal again) when I was a pre-teen originally watching the show, so I caught it like 3 years ago when I sat down and did a full-re watch of everything. that episode turned EVERYTHING on its head, imho. In subsequent re-watches I've thought back to that episode and have tried to find subtle clues that link back to 'normal again' if that makes sense.

like - when she and faith go into a coma, maybe that's her re-emerging and doing well in the 'real world' for a while, until she slips back into vampire-land (comes out of the coma.) or maybe the episode where she stays in the hospital and sees that creepy demon guy going around.. I dunno, it's just fun to think about the possibilities. I'd rather imagine that it all 'really happened' though ;)

The scene where she goes into shock is so accurately portrayed its crazy.

This was also one of the few scenes my mom has seen. When the paramedics left her with the body she said "they would never do that" me, a kid at the time, asked "why not?" "because... wait you'll see" vomit, dizzy filming "that's why"

It emphasizes how sudden death can come, and how pointless it can be - especially in war. Not everyone gets to be a hero. I was reeling after she died, I wasn't sure if it really happened - but there had to be a cost. Not every death has to have a "point", and what better time to kill someone off pointlessly than in the finale?

Her death gave that near-impossible battle a cost. The finale would have suffered without it.

The amount of theories me and my friends have come up with as to why the two characters who died, died is crazy. We've pretty much whittled it down to they had to die doing good to make up for all the bad stuff they've done and demons can't be allowed to be happy or (less likely) it then means that Giles, Xander, Willow and Buffy have all had relationships with people who died, so they did it to level the angsty playing field.

The thing is, I knew she was going to die before I'd even started watching Buffy and that scene still managed to totally surprise me. They put me in a false sense of comfort and then ripped the carpet from underneath me. I actually out loud, alone in my room, in the middle of the night, said "noooo," and felt pressure on my chest. It was the weirdest experience I've ever had watching a TV show.

The second time I watched it, months later, I was watching it with someone else and I felt shook again, just sat there not speaking or moving, so wrapped up in it.

But since I knew about the death beforehand it wasn't really a surprise... Maybe Passions? Watching that scene, I remember going, "What the heck... Did that seriously just happen?!"

Yes. Passions. Both the bit in the school and at Giles' house. It seemed to me like one of those typical sadistic George R R Martin-esque things where the second things seem to be looking up for character (or in this case a couple) they have to die/their whole family has to be murdered.

I didn't actually mind that. If anyone, Xander is the perfect person for it: blunt and won't back down when Buffy starts to defend herself. He was right, kinda, about her not truly having her heart in it because of Angel. She just never realised it because Riley was so good to her- except for those last few episodes.